


Who Am I To Disagree?

by gonfalonier



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alienation, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Anal Sex, Coitus Interruptus, Condoms, Dubious Consent, M/M, background drug use, complicated adult emotions, sexual ambivalence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:02:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonfalonier/pseuds/gonfalonier
Summary: Ned goes to a sex party, not expecting to have any sex.
Relationships: Commander James Fitzjames/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 27
Kudos: 39





	Who Am I To Disagree?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/gifts).



“Where do you even get lights like this?” Edward asks. “For a house, I mean.”

Beside him, Ross turns his head, tearing his gaze away from the two young men dancing close together in the middle of the cramped and crowded living room. “What’s that, old man?” he says, and Edward repeats himself. Ross responds with a baffled expression, bordering on offended. “Well,” he sputters. “You rent them, Ned. What on earth do you think?” His attention returns to the dancing couple, who have now removed each other’s shirts, such as they were to begin with, to reveal lean, soft bodies shimmering with glitter and sweat. Edward turns away and nurses his drink. The floor is vibrating from the music, and everyone in the room looks fevered and hungry as the rented stage lights fade from red to violet to blue and back again. The knot of men grinding in the living room beneath a cloud of smoke that smells of melting plastic is, to him, incongruous with the Georgian mantelpiece; the bookcase of crumbling antiques with the leaded glass that rattles with each thump of bass. The entire world is a mystery, however, if one tries to pulverize it down to the atoms of its essence, and so Edward strolls from the dance room to the kitchen. At least the people here are still dressed.

As he lingers by the doorjamb and observes, Edward is struck by the impression that he’s touring a sort of museum of gays. He’s just come from the Degenerates exhibit, a spectacle of the exact individuals and behavior the country’s aunts and uncles have warned about since time immemorial. Now he’s come to a display on The Homosexual Intellectual, an intimate showcase of argyle in muted tones. Here, the humidity emanating from the front room frizzes the hair of the men who are pretending not to care, even as they each pat self-consciously at their sideburns as they’re waiting for their turn to speak again. Barthes, Marx, Morrissey, PETA -- Edward feels drowsy letting the discourse wrap around him from where the men are standing, beers in hand, every one of them anxiously hoping to fuck. Edward mumbles into his plastic cup, “Oh, please, Mary,” and then strides through the kitchen to the back door of the house in search of some air. He turns no heads on his journey there. Thank Christ.

Outside, there’s a tight circle of fellows smoking and making a raucous noise. Edward fishes a fag of his own out of his shirt pocket but, for now, tucks it behind his ear. As he approaches, he sees the men are playing some sort of group game of paper-scissors-stone, all chanting the countdown and then squabbling like hens at the results. A couple of them hold drink cups between their teeth while they play. They are each of them, to a man, tall, casting long shadows in the floodlight shining over the garden.

Edward scans the men for faces he recognizes, but no one pings. The lower half of a face, maybe, from under a leather cap in a downstairs nightclub, two weeks ago Saturday. Why do gays only ever meet in low light? Perhaps just for this reason, in case they should recognize one another as colleagues or family. The same reason, again, only a thought, that they all try so very hard to look like one another. Each face in this band of outsiders is indistinguishable from the next, and by that measure indistinguishable from what Edward sees in his own mirror.

The harsh floodlight is dimmed when yet another tall man sidles up to watch the game with Edward. “Have we learned yet,” asks this new fellow, “what the winner of this tournament will actually get?”

Edward lets the question filter through his ears and into his mind before responding, “Oh. Hello, I’m Edward.”

“Are you?”

“I am, I’m a friend of Jim. He owns the house, he lives here.”

“Oh, does he?”

There’s surely a more stylish set of answers than the ones Edward’s booting out. He feels he’s being played with, and he doesn’t like it. He isn’t an amusing man by nature, so this lofty bloke’s got no business sounding so amused. Edward finally tuns toward the man and takes in his silhouette against the background lights. He says, “Do you know him?”

“I know everyone, a bit.”

Christ. They’re standing very close, too close. Edward steps back so they can both get a better look at each other, but the man doesn’t take advantage of the new angle. He continues watching the group of jokers who have now started to disperse. He’s wearing some kind of T-shirt that must be made for a child, the way it clings to his chest and reveals his navel. It’s imprinted with the image of an anchor, and an enthusiastic _Ship Ahoy!_ Edward wants nothing to do with him. Although he came outside to smoke, his mouth is now stuffed with cotton, and he’s sure if he attempts it he’ll combust and fucking die.

The man’s still stood in place, but now Edward has the full force of his attention. Edward mumbles, “I’ll be getting back inside now.”

“You,” comes the reply, “I don’t know at all.”

Edward isn’t going back inside. He’s stuck to the spot, wondering if perhaps they’re supposed to know each other. It’s a small enough world, but Edward only lives in the smallest corner of it, a mouse house built within a matchbox. With a bit of effort, he summons up his first urbane answer: “You wouldn’t like to, mate.”

“Oh, god,” the man laughs. “Really! Mate. Listen to you, how butch, how droll, I love it.”

Is this flirtation? Edward wouldn’t know. He feels a fool, but he tries a different approach and says, “How? How do you know Jim?” As if that matters.

“From around,” comes the dismissive reply. The man steps toward him and out of the backlight, and now Edward can see his face, lean and odd and handsome. A vampire to Edward’s scruffy werewolf. “Look. Edward. You’re just awful at conversation, so come back in with me where it’s loud and there’s no need to talk.”

“That’s a bit direct, isn’t it?”

“Are you coming, or aren’t you?”

Edward follows without another question. They walk silently together back through the kitchen, where the conversation has devolved into furtive mutual wanking. The man he’s walking with slows up to admire the tableaus. Edward tries, but this isn’t the scene for him. To his horror, his companion approaches a pair who are rutting together against the counter, and without so much as a _mother-may-I_ cups and then caresses the buttocks of the man facing away from them. “Lovely,” he comments, and then saunters ahead.

Edward legs it to catch up. Together they turn out of the kitchen and toward the staircase. The man had mentioned wanting to go in toward the noise, but they’re drifting ever farther from it. Three more men pass them on the stairs, single-file, and the last in line pauses, looks at Edward’s companion, clenches his jaw, and pushes him against the banister in an angry kiss. When they each push each other away, the attacker spits, smears his mouth against the back of his arm. He sneers out, “Fuck you, James. Fuck you. Fuck off.” Two steps later he encounters Edward and adds, to him, “I wouldn’t, darling. Don’t bother. Not unless you’re trash, too.” Then he’s gone.

Edward looks up at the man he’s been following, now James. James is still leaning against the balustrade as though he’s taking a moment to enjoy the view of the opposite wall. As though nothing’s transpired at all. He says to Edward, “Are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Trash.”

A question Edward’s sometimes asked himself. He certainly treats himself like complete rubbish, just ciggies and beer, no proper food, sleeping when he doesn’t want to, not sleeping when he needs to. He’ll end up ulcerated like his sisters from the sheer absence of joy in life. He supposes he’s about to have sex with James somewhere in this house, even though he isn’t in the mood for it. It won’t be an improvement on the evening, just a lateral move, but he’s come this far along in the process and it would be embarrassing to back out now for the sake of a passing opinion from one man he doesn’t know about another man he doesn’t know. James, with just a few words and a patrician brow, has made Edward feel like a natural-born embarrassment with only one way to atone.

“Let’s go on,” he says to James. “Lead the way.”

On his ascent, Edward passes the angry man’s puddle of spit on the hardwood. He stays two paces behind James as they pick their way down the narrow second storey hall. Even up here there are men. The passageway is lit by Tiffany lamps that reveal portraits in ornate wood frames on the plaster walls. (To himself, Edward mutters, “We fucking get it, mate.”) The faces of the paintings are limned in more acrid smoke from the glass pipe the men are helping each other pull from. James waves the mist away ahead of himself, but it closes back to make Edward’s eyes water. 

The walk to wherever they’re going is interminable, but at last James ducks into a room. He’s polite enough, at least, to wait until Edward’s joined him to close the door. They’re not alone in the room -- nor would they be alone anywhere in this Haus of Ross -- but the other three men are sufficiently occupied that they don’t acknowledge the new company. Edward extends the courtesy of averting his eyes, but then James approaches him from behind and pins an arm about his waist and says, “Oh, look at them.”

The warm pressure of another body makes Edward’s blood rush hot. It makes him soft in the knees, and he sags back into the partial embrace. He closes his eyes, and then he opens them again, and he looks. The configuration of the men in the room appeals to Edward as a sculpture in a fountain in a picture of Versailles. Three gods softly grappling, skin bared and smooth, overlapping hands on splayed legs. He can’t fathom what could be pleasurable about the things they’re doing, but they seem to like it, so he stops his puzzling over it. Behind him, James makes a sound that could be approval, could be curiosity, could be boredom. When he speaks, his voice is a rumble that thunders through Edward’s rib cage. James says, “Do you get fucked?”

“Yeah, sometimes.” He glances again at the men and then adds to James, “I don’t have anything on me. Rubbers, I mean.”

“Then why did you even come here.” James sucks his teeth and exhales. “Needs must.” He waves to the other men, who haven’t acknowledged him and Edward at all, and says, “Gentlemen, do you have any spare provisions?”

Edward mumbles, “Christ on a fucking bike,” but one of the men peels away from the group and rummages in the pocket of his discarded trousers to come up with a clutch of foil packets that James retrieves from him with thanks. The man says to James, “Yours looks nervous.” He nods toward Edward and offers up a little bottle of amyl. James glances over, throws Edward a smile, and declines, “No. No, I like him as he is.”

Edward wants to protest that he’s not nervous, he just isn’t in the mood for the hassle of a fuck. That ship, however, has sailed, he’s sure of it. _(Ship Ahoy!)_ He doesn’t want to get stricken from Jim’s Christmas card list for turning down a bit of cock at a cock party. And anyway, who knows? This James fellow might be someone he needs to impress. He smiles wanly at the man who’s given them their necessary supplies, though he hopes they’ll only need the one condom. The need for more than one per encounter stumps Edward, and when he asks his mates about it -- poofs or not -- he’s answered with pitying looks or tales of escapades that couldn’t possibly be true. Nobody on earth, and certainly not in England, fucks as much or as well as they’d like.

Behind him, James has begun to unfasten his own trousers to reveal a mostly soft prick bare behind the zip. He draws it out and gives himself a few casual strokes with a spit to his hand between rounds. He asks Edward, “Did you really not come here for sex?”

“It’s just not something I expect.”

“It’s a sex party, petal.”

“Well, that’s not a guarantee.”

“For you, maybe.” James gestures towards Edward’s belt. “Are you going to participate?”

“Oh.” Edward fumbles with his trousers. He feels idiotic. This is another exhibit, he thinks, in the museum: One that visitors pass by because it’s dull, and because it’s not unique to them gays. The straights do this, too, buffalo one another into sex, or bend over for one another because it’s simply the done thing. It’s a human trait, one they all share. Edward hums a bit while he gets his kit down and kneels up on the bed in front of them. _I’d like to teach the world to sing._

James closes in on him again and noses at the back of his neck. “Eager,” he mutters. “Would you not like a kiss first?”

“You’ve had ample opportunity, mate. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Oh, listen! The claws on this one.” James laughs. Edward joins him, since the joke is about him but doesn’t seem to be at his expense. “Come here.”

Edward looks over his shoulder and James finds him for a kiss. It’s lovely, actually, this part. Perhaps the rest will be too. James has this lovely head of hair, long and loose about his shoulders, and Edward touches it to find it soft and clean, no gel, no spray. Bit of mousse maybe. He’ll have to ask about it later, when their tongues aren’t sliding against each other. It’s a deep kiss, and full of meaning. Communication, even. When they first entered the bedroom, Edward couldn’t understand how the men who were already in it didn’t notice the intrusion. Now he’s sure he wouldn’t know it if the house collapsed.

“There,” says James when they part. “I feel we know each other now, don’t you?”

Edward looks at him and imagines a wreath of stars about his head. He doesn’t feel he knows James at all, but what is there to know? What is there to know? He risks toppling backward to steal one more kiss, and then he answers, “Well enough to be getting on with, yeah.”

James says, “Just so,” and then guides Edward down, by the back of his neck, to knees and forearms. Christ, it’s been weeks since he’s been fucked. What if he’s forgotten how?

There’s a hand on his backside then, warming his skin, and then the other hand joins it to spread his arse open, and that’s when Edward remembers that this really is something that he loves. “It’s good,” he mumbles into the duvet. “I want it.”

“About bloody time.” James’s dry thumb ghosts over Edward’s arsehole and he makes a low noise. “Look how tight you are, petal. You’re quite lucky it’s me who found you. A few of these other chaps might’ve sent you to Casualty.”

That’s a first, isn’t it: A man expecting to be thanked for having a pencil-dick. Edward makes a noncommittal grunt while James continues to pet him. He drops his forehead down onto the bed and tries to force himself to relax. What he would give for one more kiss, a dozen more kisses. What he would give to abandon this exercise and trot back downstairs where he and James could watch the kids flail about in Jim’s parlor to the sound of the worst music ever made. They could befriend each other, he and James, and then try for this later. That’s how the normal people do, isn’t it? It’s how Edward did when he was still trying to be one of them.

“Oh, fuck.” There’s a nudge against his hole, something damp and sticky, not a cock. He twists to look over his shoulder and sees James maneuvering two fingers, swathed in a pre-lubricated condom, against him. He feels the reservoir tip crinkle up against him before James breaches him at last. With a groan, Edward looks back to his hands, flat in front of him, and grumbles, “Now who’s eager?”

“If I guess right, what do I win?”

“Sex at a sex party.”

“I’ve already won that tonight, Edward.” James pushes one finger in and then lets the other join it. A careful move that Edward appreciates. “But that was a very clever answer.” He brings his thumb down to compress the rim of Edward’s hole against the base of his fingers, now slid in deep. “How does that feel, pet?”

“It’s good. It’s good.” He looks over his shoulder again. He knows his face is hot and dark. He forgets to breathe when he’s like this. He’s already blinking away a bit of sweat. He says, “Do you want me?”

“Mercy.” James looks up from where he’s been watching his own hand slick up Edward’s cunt. “You’re one of those. Yes, darling, I want you.” He places his free hand flat between Edward’s shoulder blades to push him back down. “I adore you. We’ll be married in July. Now stay just like that.”

Edward balks -- _One of those?_ A homosexual dullard who likes to know that he’s worth the hassle of being sodomized? “Yes, sir,” he mumbles into the bed. Christ, he hates the way that makes his own prick take an interest.

“So surly,” drawls James. He drags his fingers out, and fuck, that’s nice. That’s quite good. Edward’s arsehole flutters, and he rocks back in search of more. James continues, “I do want you, if you’re still in doubt. You looked like you were having a terrible time. I’m surprised no one else snapped you up. Or perhaps you didn’t let them.”

“Fuck.”

“Mm. You let me, didn’t you. You’re letting me.” His open hand slides down from Edward’s shoulders to his lower back. He withdraws his fingers, and then, unpleasantly, tugs the empty condom out. Edward hears another packet being opened, and then James adds, “This should make you more agreeable.”

“Oh, fuck. Oh, Christ.” Edward reaches out in front of himself until his face is sunk into the duvet. He sobs, though he’s not crying, he’s merely trying to cope. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, there it is. There it is.” His words stick humidly to the fabric as saliva trickles from his tongue. James enters him carefully, gradually, by a thousand cuts, until Edward can no longer conjure up a word or a thought. James never allows himself to settle, to be fully seated, choosing instead to set a staccato rhythm that makes Edward’s body spark alive. His fingers twitch and grasp, and his thighs tremble as James quite thoroughly uses him.

James grunts, “Good god. Christ alive. Are you feeling that, pet?”

“I am. Fuck. Fuck.” Edward’s body is flushed hot and relaxed enough that James’s hands on his flanks are the only thing holding him up. Any worries that were agitating him before -- were there any? -- have ebbed away; he’s sweated them out. He can feel every thrusting inch of James’s cock, every roll of his foreskin, and he bites down on the duvet as he considers that James is simply using him to masturbate. “Do that,” he spits into the fabric. He turns his head to the side so his words are clear when he says, “Fucking use me.”

That gets a sound from the entire room. A big hit, apparently. One of the guys on the far wall says, “Oh, fuck yes.” Against the skin of rib cage, James tenses his hand into a claw and drags his fingernails down and down until he can slap Edward square on the meat of his arse. He stills his hips, leans over until his breath puffs intimately against the back of Edward’s neck, and he hisses, “As if you have a choice.”

Ned growls out a blasphemy through his gritted teeth.

And then he’s being hauled back up by the hair, dragged up until James has him braced tight against his chest. “Watch them,” James breathes. “Watch them with me.” He takes Edward’s hand and moves it where he wants it so Edward’s taking himself in hand. Edward curls his fingers around his own prick and turns his attention to the tangle of men in the room. They’re in a different configuration now; no more battle pose, no more wrestling. Now they’re pooled in sweat on the hardwood flooring in decadent repose. Edward doesn’t care. He begins to ride back against James as he strikes a matching rhythm with his own hand. Behind him, James rasps against his shoulder.

Edward doesn’t watch. He can feel James gazing past him and watching the other men move together, and that’s lovely; let him. A bit of a porno to accompany his wank. Edward takes a breath and holds it as he fucks himself.

For Edward, an orgasm is simply icing. It’s a dessert, it’s neither expected nor required but a lovely way to end an encounter. He finds that some men don’t even want to experience them, for fear of a viral load. James doesn’t seem like that sort. James wants the full show for his penny, so Edward will oblige.

Edward knows that James is getting close when he feels the man’s sweaty forehead smear against his shoulder. “There it is,” Edward tells him. “Fuck. There it is. There it is.”

James mutters, “Shit. Shit, I need to --” Edward feels a jolt of pain as he’s jostled forward. He topples and catches himself one-handed on the bed, but he feels a rearing wave of nausea when he realizes James has pulled out of him. 

“What’s the matter?” he says. “What’s happening” When he turns over to see, when he turns onto his sore backside, he’s expecting to find some sort of intrusion to the room, or perhaps James on the floor in the throes of a seizure. Instead, James is standing, hunched, tugging at his cock, still sheathed in its condom. “What the fuck, mate.” 

In his periphery, he sees the other men dressing themselves. They finished without any fanfare, he supposes, or they simply got bored. Christ knows he’s been there. James pays them no mind, nor Edward either, as he brings himself off. He finally stiffens and, with an undignified sound, fills up the tip of the condom. Edward feels queasy, seeing it. He’s lost his own hardon, and he doesn’t much care. Clearly it was just for himself, anyway.

James slouches for a moment, loose, with his arms hanging down as he catches his breath. Edward watches him from where he’s still sat on the bed. The three men, now clothed and looking quite nice, make their farewells to him and James, and they leave the door open when they go. The corridor sounds empty now, and the music drifting up from the front room has tamed itself from thudding bass to a pulsating saxophone. Edward is sure the smell downstairs must be unbearable by now.

His body is cooled now, with his sweat drying in the hair on his legs. His shirt feels heavy now on his chest, his shoes heavy on his feet, but nothing’s quite as heavy as his lead balloon of a prick now lolling, harmless, against his thigh.

James strips off his condom with a delicate touch. He ties it off tight, squares himself away, and then steps out the open door and across the hall to flush it down the commode. “Really,” grumbles Edward as he finally pushes himself up to begin making himself decent again. The fog has lifted from his brain, but his fingers are still fumbling. He remembers now the fellow who spit at them on the staircase. He couldn’t imagine behaving that way at the time. Now he’s wondering if he could conjure up the saliva.

It hurts to stand. He’ll see if Jim will let him stay the night to save the humiliating limp back home. He allows himself a full-body shudder. He feels quite ugly. When James returns, he leans against the frame of the door with his arms crossed. He casually asks, “Did you come?”

“What is the fucking matter with you?”

“Oh, dear.” James feigns a pout. “That bad, was it?”

Edward can’t summon an answer from his dry throat. He suspects it wasn’t a question in need of one. He makes to exit the room, and when he shoulders past, James takes hold of his wrist. “Let’s do this again sometime, petal.”

In a just world, Edward would have snarled back, “Fuck yourself,” or, “Get stuffed,” or just bitten off the tip of James’s nose. It is an unjust world, however, especially for men like Edward, and for Edward specifically, so instead he replies, “All right,” and then shakes his hand free and walks away toward the stairs. In the corridor, a young man is lighting a cigarette, which makes Edward crave one of his own. He had one, at some point tonight, didn’t he? He was just getting ready to enjoy it when all this trouble popped up.

The young man smiles at him, then glances down the hall to where James is smoothing down his hair. “Another one bites the dust,” the boy calls out. “Is that it, James?” For the first time tonight, that Edward’s seen, James looks abashed.

Edward descends the stairs, ignoring the tacky chafing of his hole. His fucking -- his arsehole, his bumhole, the place where he gets fucked. He scowls as he makes his way to the kitchen, where he knows there’s expensive rye vodka in the freezer.

Edward prides himself on not being played. Rolled. He’s never been bashed; he’s never had a guy rob him after fucking him. His tests have never come back positive, because he’s never been stupid. Dutiful, even in his pleasure. He likes to think he floats above the spectacle of the stereotypes, the museum. No dramatics here, no pretension. No heartbreak, either, until now.

He stands in front of the open freezer and swallows a bracing pull from the bottle of liquor. Ross’s cat wanders into the kitchen, looking put out. He passes behind Edward and strokes his ankle with his tail.

With a sigh, Edward puts the bottle away and returns once again to the back door of the house. He opens it and steps out into the balmy evening, and the cat follows him into the garden. “Just you and me,” he says, looking about for other signs of life.

He retrieves another cig from the pocket of his shirt and then sits down in the grass. He pats down his pockets in search of a light, and, finding none, simply lies down on his back.

He really was having a terrible night.

**Author's Note:**

> it's 1987, and james is poz, bless him. anyway, let me know if you need anything, i love you.


End file.
